Freedom TM

face of high technology. How do you preserve your freedom when the powerful can use software bots to detect dissent and deploy droneaircraft to take out troublemakers? Human beings are increasingly unnecessary to wield power in the modern world.”
    “Laney calls it ‘neofeudalism.’”
    Price’s voice rose across the table. “And it’s happening already, Sergeant. Mark my words.”
    Ross turned to Price. “What do you mean, Laney?”
    “See, in medieval Europe a mounted knight in armor could defeat almost any number of peasants.” He jabbed a fork in Ross’s direction. “The modern elite warrior is much the same—they can mow down mass conscripted armies with superior technology. So what happens when small elite forces can overwhelm citizen forces of almost any size? We return to feudalism—landless serfs and a permanent ruling class. Just look at the fortified upscale neighborhoods now being built with their own private security forces. It’s neofeudalism, man.”
    Ross turned back to Sebeck.
    Sebeck shook his head. “I’ll never understand how we let this happen.”
    “Democracy requires active participation, and sooner or later someone ‘offers’ to take all the difficult decision-making away from you and your hectic life. But the darknet throws those decisions back onto you. It hard-codes democracy into the DNA of civilization. You upvote and downvote many times a day on things that directly affect your life and the lives of people around you—not just once every few years on things you haven’t got a chance in hell of affecting.”
    Sebeck finished the last of his espresso. “Look, I can see distributed democracy working in holons like this, but can we really run an entire civilization off something that was essentially a gaming engine?”
    “Can you name anything else that’s as battle tested? It’s been attacked nine ways to Sunday by every leet hacker on the planet.Sobol basically used an army of teen gamers to beta test the operating system for a new civilization. I guess all those hours gaming weren’t a waste of time, after all.”
    Price laughed. “Right on, man.”
    Sebeck glanced at the Scale of Themis at the center of his HUD display. Locally, power was leaning a bit to the left—widely distributed. “Jon, humor me: look at the Scale of Themis.”
    “Okay.” Ross started clicking on D-Space objects. “What about it?”
    “I’ve been noticing this. Dial it back to look at the global distribution of darknet power.”
    Ross did so, and Sebeck already knew what he was seeing; the Scale of Themis had moved dramatically to the right—nearly three-quarters of the way. It meant that darknet power in much of the world was concentrated in relatively few hands.
    “Is this really an improvement over what we have now? You’ll find the reputation ranking per level is below average also—two stars out of five. So there’s a concentration of power among people of questionable character.”
    Ross confirmed this with a few clicks and stared at the objects in D-Space. “The darknet is still new in many places—and being taken up first by misfits and outsiders—like most new frontiers. That was the case here in the beginning as well—just look at Loki’s reputation score.”
    “But let’s not just drink the Kool-Aid here. We should always be asking ourselves if—”
    “Excuse me. I don’t mean to bother you.…”
    Sebeck looked up to see a man in his early thirties, with his wife and their infant in a stroller. The man’s call-out identified him as
Prescott3,
his wife as
Linah
. “Sorry to interrupt you, but I couldn’t help notice your quest icon. Are you Pete Sebeck?”
    Sebeck nodded.
    “I’ve been following your quest for months. It’s an honor to have you here in Greeley. I wonder if we could get a picture with you?”
    Sebeck could see the man was a sixth-level Architect with a three-star reputation score. He looked back down at the man himself, and suddenly realized how the world had changed. “Sure. Happy to.”
    “Oh, that’s so nice of you. Here.…” He picked up his infant and extended him for Sebeck to hold in his lap. Sebeck accepted the child uncertainly—it had been a long time since he’d held an infant. As he looked down at the child, he couldn’t help but think of his own son, Chris. Sebeck had barely been seventeen when he became a father.
    The parents moved in on either side of Sebeck’s chair. “I want to have this picture to show